Laughter burst. Another man shouted, “Who’ll take the cow?”
That made more laughter. Someone tossed a snowball at the platform, and it hit the boards near her boots, exploding into slush.
The woman’s name, I heard later, used to be spoken like a real name.
Sophie Harland.
But in Black Gulch they’d turned her into a joke with three words, the way cruel towns do. Like labeling a thing makes it easier to throw away.
“Obese widow!” someone called, like announcing her at a circus.
Sophie didn’t flinch. She stared straight ahead, mouth set, shoulders braced against more than weather. Her wig, pinned too tight, didn’t hide what life had taken. It only tried.
The auctioneer raised his voice. “Two dollars! Two! Do I hear three?”
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